Page 89 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Kitan

I woke from a deep slumber with a start; something was off.

Chloe was still curled up against my side, her pale hair draped over my arm, and her breathing soft and even.

The box with her precious implant was clutched beneath one arm, slightly uncomfortably jammed into my side, but that hardly mattered.

That thing was not leaving our side for a single moment.

Stretching my senses wide open, I tried to figure out what it was that had woken me up. My body was, for once, not sore, having recovered from all the shifting. There was no sound in the room, no strange scent either, but still, I was certain something had happened.

Going with my gut, I gently shook Chloe awake. “Get dressed, baby.” Something told me we needed to get ready to move fast; I couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason for it. Maybe it was a thudding, rustling kind of sound coming from outside the rooms. Had something happened with the change of guards?

To her credit, Chloe didn’t panic. She slid out from between the sheets on the other side of the bed and ducked into the closet to dress.

I did the same on my side, locating a pair of leather pants to slide on, followed by socks, boots, and a dark but loosely knitted sweater to help ward off the faint chill in the air.

There was no sign anywhere of my Vagabond jumpsuit, which meant someone had come in here and taken the one thing that was a reminder of my past.

Chloe popped up on the other side of the bed again, dressed in black leather pants like my own and her sturdy boots.

On top, she wore a dark gray crochet tank top with a deep V-neck that did far too interesting a thing to her cleavage.

Momentarily, I wondered if she’d let me lean in and lick her there.

Then, thankfully, she shrugged a large, loose black sweater over it all and topped it off with my sleeveless jacket.

“How did you manage to keep that?” I demanded, eyeing the jacket before pivoting to head for the door.

Sounds were still coming from there; I wanted to find out what was going on.

If I’d woken Chloe and made us get dressed for no reason, I’d feel like an idiot.

I didn’t think I was, though. Something was going on out there.

“I thought they might want to take it, so I stuffed it in a pillowcase,” Chloe replied from behind me. I wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing, as I was focused on what I could see out the windows or hear through the door. I heard rustling, though, so she was clearly up to something.

Approaching the door, I pressed my back to the wall next to it.

I was almost a hundred percent certain now that, at any moment, someone was going to come in.

I was proven right barely a few seconds after I’d thought it: the door swished open silently, and a shadow silhouetted itself in the bright light coming in from the hallway beyond it.

I didn’t hesitate; I snapped out a hand and closed it around the throat of the intruder, yanking them inside and slamming them against the doorjamb opposite me, pinning the door open so we’d have a chance to escape.

The shadow gasped but didn’t struggle. I felt the fur beneath my hand, saw the white outline of a pale fox hybrid-form, and the blue eyes.

Ga’tera’s scent swirled into my nose. “Let go,” the officer rasped.

“Not here to fight. Not with you.” My eyes darted to the left, appraising the hallway beyond my quarters and noting the half a dozen bodies knocked out on the floor.

They were all in hybrid-form, dressed in the all-black tactical gear that would protect their soft spots.

My eyes went back to Ga’tera, and I noted immediately that, unlike the six out in the hallway, he wore the same black-and-silver uniform as he had earlier that evening.

There was a lasergun strapped to his hip and a knife on his thigh, but he hadn’t used either of them.

The uniform was made from a stretchy material that would accommodate his shifted form, but it still strained at the edges.

“You did that?” I demanded, pointing at the bodies.

Ga’tera’s eyes narrowed, and he bared the long rows of sharp teeth in his mouth.

I still had him pinned, and he was letting me—not fighting—but he didn’t like it.

“I did,” he snarled, eyes sparking. When I let go of him and stepped back, his shoulders lowered, and he shook himself out, eyeing the prone men.

“They thought to ambush me, beat me up—no doubt on Purveyn’s orders.

These are all part of his personal guard.

” The officer stepped out into the hallway and callously kicked one of the fallen guys over, pointing at an emblem on the shoulder.

Ah, so Purveyn had intended to jump Ga’tera and punish him for breaking the rules when he’d given me the implant for Chloe.

But why outside my door? I was impressed with Ga’tera’s skill; he’d knocked them all out and had used non-lethal force.

He certainly wasn’t treating them with respect, but he hadn’t wanted to kill them.

Another scent in the air made me stiffen and spin around.

Dyantos stood just outside the pool of light.

The old true shifter’s eyes glowed eerily in the dark, not quite the sharp gold they used to be.

His lined face was devoid of emotion, but he maintained eye contact without blinking.

Was he telling me something? Just happened to be here?

I knew that the Suleantran council felt they had Dyantos so under their thumb that he was treated with far more leniency.

“Ah, revered mate,” Ga’tera said, and I turned to see that Chloe stood in the doorway. She had an improvised sack strapped to her back, bulging with things; another dangled from her hand, which she stuck out to me.

“Let’s go,” she urged the moment I’d taken the makeshift bag and slung it over my shoulder. She left the room and crouched down to divest one of Purveyn’s guards of his weapons, strapping them to her belt instead.

Smirking, I followed her example. She was right: there was no time to dawdle; this was the best opportunity we were going to get.

I half expected Officer Ga’tera or old Dyantos to say something, to stop us, but neither did.

Ga’tera helped strip one of the guys and handed me the spare gun and knife.

“You’re going to have to knock me out; I can’t leave. ”

Ah, so there was something that was holding him here.

“There’s a girl, a girl like me. She’s four.

Do you know where they keep her?” I had to ask; Kest would want me to.

If there was a chance Chloe and I could get her out, we needed to do that.

I didn’t like the thought of having to leave a child behind.

“I know where she is,” Ga’tera murmured, his voice heavy and sad. “You can’t get to her. I’m sorry.” Every line of his body indicated he spoke the truth, even his scent turned sad. My heart plummeted at the news, but I had my own priorities and they were all about my mate.

Chloe huffed. “We can’t leave a little girl behind to get tortured!” She echoed my sentiment perfectly, but Ga’tera had an answer for that. “You’re not. She’s not being tortured yet. They haven’t got her under contract, and they need the paperwork.”

That sounded both ridiculous and somehow made complete sense.

I knew there was a contract I was under, signed by my father.

In trade for my servitude to the priesthood, they received a hefty stipend each year.

Maybe they couldn’t do anything to the girl yet because they needed the paper to cover their tracks.

She was four; they’d feel like they had all the time in the world to break her.

Not that it made me feel better about leaving her behind.

It wasn’t like I’d be able to do anything for her from the outside.

“You must go,” Dyantos said. His normal speaking voice was low and mournful, an unexpectedly lucid sound.

“Purveyn has no intention of providing your mate with the surgery. I heard him say so.” I turned to look at the old male and took in his dark robes, plainer than what I was used to seeing on him.

I noted the shape of his face and the underlying scent of his body—the part of his scent that was purely his.

Startled by my discovery, I looked at Officer Ga’tera again, noting that he’d shifted out of his hybridform.

I was so familiar with Dyantos that, even after close to fifteen years of absence, I hadn’t made the connection because I hadn’t consciously processed the information.

With Ga’tera in skinform, the resemblance was more obvious. “You’re Dyantos’ son?”

Ga’tera stiffened, straightening from where he’d been restraining the fallen guards and starting to drag them into the chambers that Chloe and I had occupied.

Rolling his shoulders, he sent me a narrow-eyed blue gaze, so different from the golden one of Dyantos.

“I am,” he responded, “one of the many he was forced to sire during his life.”

Chloe made a sad gasping sound and reached out a hand, patting the male on the elbow.

“I’m so sorry.” Then she turned to look at Dyantos, taking in his old and frail appearance—his diminished form.

Dyantos was easily close to a century in age, while Ga’tera could have no more than twenty and a few cycles on him.

Dyantos had sired Ga’tera late in life. What I didn’t understand was why Ga’tera was here.

If he had a familial relation to Dyantos, that should have excluded him from a spot on the Suleantran guard.